


Free

by Felinis



Series: SoulMate AU [7]
Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 11:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18387317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felinis/pseuds/Felinis
Summary: Estelle exists apart from the rest





	Free

**Author's Note:**

> oh look where we at more words.

 

She was four when she first learned the truth about soulmates or rather when she overheard the nobility speaking with her mother about taking Estelle into the palace.

“She clearly has the royal blood in her and a proper lineage must remain. She’s too important to risk letting her love be someone from the common rabble.”

“Or worse another woman. If she can’t carry the family name there’s no use in having one.” Estelle watched the nobles pull out that all too familiar golden band that she knew children like her always wore.

Her mother had taken it gracefully, “I understand. Thank you for considering her worthy of such an honor.”

“Thank your blood.”

Estelle had been so confused by the exchange at the time but quickly she learned the truth and what they really meant when the time came she hit puberty and no mark appeared on her wrist. Estelle had been absolutely terrified at this and when she asked why she didn’t have soulmate it was because she was above them.

“You were considered special enough that fate has decided any choice you make will lead to happiness.” Her nanny had said as she wisped about an old folk tale of those with good hearts and breeding would sometimes be born free of such marks. Especially royalty. “It’s just proof you’re special beyond compare.”

But that couldn’t be right. It wasn’t right! Estelle had powers yes but soulmates where fates way of saying here is your happy ending. She’d never made an important decision once in her life and she was supposed to believe she’d earned the right to just choose correctly. That it always be right?

No.

So she looked closer on the gold band she’d been given and through some extensive needling with one of the maids was allowed to compare the bands. They were virtually identical except hers was lighter and when she tore hers open she found it was pure leather and metal. None of the intricate machinery of the other band.

She’d not been allowed a soulmate…

As she sat on the bed staring at the inner mechanisms of the band a thought occurred to her. What becomes of the would-be soulmate if their other half never shows up? Do they end up alone forever or are they just tossed along to someone else? What become of that match? Is it just an endless spiral of the system reshuffling till it says in defeat ‘good enough’?

“Who would I end up even marrying?” She asked aloud on the bed in the realization that if practically everyone had a soulmate that made the pool of people she could ever come to love not just small but astronomically so.

Softly she asked one of the councils about this because she was certain they knew the truth intimately and was not unsurprised to learn that, yes, she had five potential preapproved suitors all of varying degrees in nobility ready for her to marry.

“But why?”

“Why else to keep nobility as nobility!” The councilman proclaimed, “If we left everything to fate then we might have been forced to interbreed with the peasants. You’re but a young and frankly foolish child but we have oracles to check on this sort of thing and if left to your own devices you’d be sullying the royal line.”

“But, if they’re my soulmate then-“

“Allow, me to stop you right there miss Estellise. You seem to be under a delusion that soulmates are a good thing. I assure you that those with them are miserable.” His hand had been hard as slipped across her shoulder. “Imagine being like them, your emotions strung along by a mark and your mind slowly reprogrammed to love a single person even if you don’t want to.”

The contempt in his voice had been so cutting, “They’re practically livestock compared to us. Do take care to remember that.”

Estelle didn’t want to believe it was true. It couldn’t be true! It wasn’t right, but at the same time looking at her blank wrist underneath her gloves the words rang in her head.

People always spoke so wistfully about their soulmate.

And then she met Flynn Scifo after he was assigned to serve as a guard. She overheard he was given the position because he was getting readjusted after some illness and frankly Estelle was ridiculously easy to guard.

“May I ask you something?” She’d said to him one day in the garden.

“Certainly.”

“When you daze off what are you thinking about?” The lines on Flynn’s face crossed and his nose curled.

“My soulmate, unfortunately.” She’s slightly cocked her head to the side and he took in a deep breath and rubbed at his temple. “I… I messed up my mind a while back and well, I guess the best way to put it is I need to think about them every few hours to keep functioning.”

Those words again rattled as Flynn tried his best to keep a perfect smile through what she saw underneath was frustration in his eyes, “Do you not like thinking about them?”

“I don’t like that I _need_ to think about them.”

She felt so left out of the loop. She couldn’t relate to Flynn’s experience of love and devotion or the feelings in that in between where you’ve yet to meet. She couldn’t relate to the frustration of not being able to struggle against loving someone. Estelle… Estelle couldn’t feel like him.

She had free will to choose on her own and yet she was so constricted and bound endlessly in wire and thorns. “If you didn’t have a soulmate… if you never had a mark… what would you think of them? Do you think you’d still love them?”

Flynn hummed a little, “Well… I probably would still be really good friends with him. I can’t imagine not being friends with Yuri. But, as for love? I can’t say. I never had a chance to ever look at anyone any other way or even just have misdirected emotions. Yuri at least got a year of that…”

“I had ten seconds.”

And Estelle would never have that, to begin with… In all likelihood, she would never feel love, to begin with because her future had been prearranged. She was chattel to be sold for status and wealth and that was it. She envies Flynn for that chance but she also afraid when she sees him blank out.

When sometimes he leaves the room and she hears a grunt of pain as he snaps himself back into reality.

In the end the longer she knows Flynn the more she thinks it be better if soulmates were gone, to begin with.


End file.
